by Roger Moore
“Prepare for boarding!” Vorr shouted to his scro marines. The Venomous Hullсatcher would be the first marine vessel to reach the hammership, but Vorr’s ship would be close behind it. Vorr would have preferred the first boarding go to a more experienced crew on another scorpion ship, particularly the Eyecutter, but the scro of the Venomous Hullkatcher could use the experience, and it was, after all, the closest marine ship. If the crew on the vipership Hellfang held back on its jettison fire, the operation would be over within a matter of two or three minutes.
The whole thing was rather a waste of time, Vorr thought, given the way the hammership was so overwhelmed. He should have taken out just six ships at most, maybe four, and made it a challenge. He still wondered how the false lich was able to know that the cloak-wearing human had taken a ship to Ironpiece from the Rock of Bral. He’d have to check the lich’s equipment over after he killed it; maybe Usso would get a present out of it.
“The pyramid is signaling, sir,” the scro at his right elbow observed. General Vorr looked across the black gulf to the lich’s pyramidal spelljammer. Bright light flashed out from each of the four corners of the pyramid, spelling out a short message in scro pulse code. The lich – or whatever that skeletal, robed thing was – had been remarkably efficient at installing the magical lights and at learning basic scro codes. The undead thing had admitted to being quite taken with this method of communication; it gave the lich ideas, the lich had said.
“The commander of the pyramid asks you to cease fire, to prevent harm to the cloak,” the scro read.
Vorr nodded, having seen the same message. “Signal to him that we are about to board,” the general muttered. “We will cease fire.” He looked back at the ruined hammership and again thought about the joy he would have, wrapping his thick fingers around the lich-thing’s skull and shattering it into a thousand —
The hammership moved. Rather, it shot forward so fast that Vorr could barely follow it. He saw its bow slice through the upper deck of the vipership ahead of it, then its mast smash against the lower hull of a scorpion ship farther ahead, splitting the scorpion almost in two. The hammership’s main mast snapped off only ten feet above its forecastle deck, the pole carried away in the collision. Then the hammership was through the whole formation and was fading from sight on a course dead-set for the flat world of Ironpiece.
Vorr simply stared. Precious seconds slipped by before he regained his thoughts and voice.
“Go after it!” he roared. “Signal all ships! Get that damned hammership!”
The scro at his elbow grabbed at the signaling switch on the railing before him and prepared to bock out the message, but he was distracted by the flashing of another ship’s lights, from the hammership Chain Master just to starboard. The scro read the message, then spun around and looked up and aft.
“Armada, by Dukagsh!” he yelled, pointing. “Elves!”
Vorr turned, eyes wide. From out of nowhere, out of nothing at all, a titanic orange butterfly had appeared. It was right behind Admiral Halker’s elephant-faced flagship, an ogre mammoth called the Thundertusk, easily within weapons’ reach. This the gigantic elven ship proved by opening fire at point-blank range, above and aft of its huge, oval target.
Fireballs and lightning bolts exploded across the Thundertusk’s upper deck. Vorr saw ogres and scro hurled like cornhusk dolls into space from the mammoth’s back, their black armor aflame. Shattered and burning planking burst in all directions, backlit by a stupendous fireball that punched into the rear of the reconditioned mammoth like a god’s sledgehammer. A flaming wood-and-metal shield, a section of the mammoth’s starboard ear, was thrown whirling into space.
“All units! Attack!” Vorr shouted at the top of his lungs. The admiral would have to save himself, if saving he needed. The scro hastily flashed Vorr’s message as his own ship’s catapults came to life, flinging two-ton loads of stone up at the gigantic wings of the elven warship above them. The first shots were off, but the gunners were already adjusting the sighting.
By the Tomb of Dukagsh, this was a fight! the general thought with a mixture of shock and excitement. An armada, an elven capital ship! But how could it have just appeared there? Were the rumors of cloaking devices on elven ships true? Could the elves hide entire battleships right up to the moment of attack?
“We’ll know soon enough, when we peel your skin off,” the general said aloud. The scro next to him wisely said nothing. “It shouldn’t take long. Twenty-seven ships to one seems fair enough to me.” Vorr smiled.
At that moment, he saw a second elven ship, a man-o-war, appear out of nowhere and open fire on a vipership. The smaller vessel immediately burst apart in flames, its back broken.
Another man-o-war then appeared and went for its prey. Then a third and a fourth one came out of nowhere.
Ten minutes later, the gnomes arrived and shot at everyone.
*****
Teldin wondered when the dream would end. He felt very warm and light-headed. He still couldn’t move his legs, but they felt fine now. Numb, but fine.
In one way, Teldin could still see the companionway around him, with the buckled port wall and the hole in the ceiling where the galley had been. In another way, he was looking ahead of the Probe, as if he were still hovering above it like a guardian spirit. The curve of Ironpiece’s distant edge now filled the forward view. The near edge of the world was below them and falling sternward rapidly. The ship was going right where Teldin wanted it: down to the ground.
I need a lake, he thought, as he watched one pass far beneath the ship. The Probe has to land in water. There must be water ahead somewhere.
“Teldin.”
Teldin wasn’t surprised. He had vaguely noticed Aelfred coming down the stairs from the main deck. Aelfred was followed by Sylvie, who had a torn strip of cloth wound around her bloodied head. It was a strip from Aelfred’s shirt, he noticed. Aelfred seemed uninjured.
“Teldin, what are you doing?” Aelfred appeared to be afraid to get any closer than the bottom step. He was just a few feet from Teldin’s outstretched left arm. He spoke very quietly but dearly, like a child, staring at Teldin’s cloak.
How odd, Teldin thought. My cloak is glowing. It’s pink, like a sunrise.
Teldin licked his lips. The dream still held. “I’m saving the ship,” he said in a barely audible voice. He tried to clear his throat. “We’re going to Ironpiece.”
Aelfred looked around the corridor. “How? We don’t have a helm, Teldin. Both of the helms were destroyed.” His voice was different, as if he were afraid of something. Maybe it was the cloak, the way it was glowing.
“I know about the helms,” Teldin said. He tried to think of how to explain it, but couldn’t. “Don’t worry about it, Aelfred. I won’t let us get hurt.”
Aelfred knelt down, looking over the bright-pink glow of the cloak and the door covering Teldin’s legs. Sylvie stood back, her eyes as large and round as plates. Aelfred was sweating, though it wasn’t very warm in the hallway.
“Should I move this?” the big warrior asked. “Can you move your legs?”
“No, and no,” Teldin gasped. “Oh, there’s water.”
“What?” Aelfred was confused. He looked up and around, trying to follow Teldin’s blank gaze.
“Water,” said Teldin. “We’re going to land soon, very soon. There’s a city on the far end of the lake. Get the crew ready.”
“What about you?” Sylvie asked, her voice strained.
“I’m fine,” said Teldin, though he thought he might be mistaken. He felt nothing in his legs. “Get the crew ready. We’re coming down.”
Aelfred got to his feet. His face was as white as a ghost’s. A low, throbbing sound was starting to build through the ship. Aelfred recognized it as the sound of atmospheric reentry. With one backward look, he started up the stairs, catching Sylvie by the arm and pulling her after him.
It was easier to concentrate now that Teldin was alone. He became aware of the loud,
throbbing howl building all around the ship. The decks were filled with men and women, all trying to get firm holds on the railings or bracing their backs against forward walls. Teldin could see light playing in through the ruined ceiling, a dark blue sky forming all around as the hammership fell through the air of Ironpiece. He watched the long, narrow lake ahead of the ship grow slowly. Clouds flew past. The pink of his cloak grew brighter. The ear-blasting howl was shaking the whole ship. Treetops and dirt roads raced by below; now they weren’t so far away. The near edge of the lake grew wider. Down a bit. A bit more. To starboard. Down more. Down. Starboard.
Waves were visible on the lake, marching in perfect order. The wind howled in a fury all around the Probe, blasting down the ruined corridor from the ceiling and whipping Teldin’s face. He felt nothing but warmth. He was bringing the hammership down to safety. His friends would be fine. The marching waves were coming up now. Closer. Closer. Closer. He was at peace. A hundred feet.
Fifty. Now —
The Probe struck the lake’s surface with a thunderclap and skipped upward. Everyone on the decks screamed and clutched at railings and each other, momentarily weightless. Teldin barely heard them over the crash of the landing. The hammership dropped back and the thunderclap sounded again, nearly shattering the hull. The ship skipped up again, traveling at incredible speed. I need to slow it down, Teldin thought. We’re going too fast. The ship slowed at once, fell and struck the water with a terrible sound, and everything slammed forward toward the bow, including Teldin and the door frame on his legs. Teldin could not hear the screams over the explosion of water against the hull, the shaking and battering as the ship sliced through the waves. Then cold water poured down through the ceiling in a torrent. Teldin choked, and the dream ended, and he screamed and screamed as the water rose all around him until it covered his head.
*****
“It’s down!” boomed the security commander, watching from the shore. He swung his huge bulk to his left and pointed. “Squadron Twelve, fire your engines!”
Gnome pilots pulled down their goggles, flipped the starter switches on their machines, and grabbed for the leather-covered steering levers that stuck up in front of their belted seats. One by one, the giant steam-powered fans mounted in the back of each wide, flat boat thundered to life. The security commander quickly found his seat on his own boat, especially built to accommodate his immense size, and leaned toward the pilot. “Take us out!” he yelled.
The gnome pilot tugged on a cord, and an ear-splitting whistle sounded from the rear of the boat. The fan-powered vehicle lurched forward, then picked up speed as it crossed the lake’s surface. The security commander fidgeted, realizing that his seat was less solid than he had hoped. It might not even be bolted down; perhaps his own weight alone kept him in place. He’d have the maintenance teams out in droves on every ship after this run, he promised himself.
His gnome pilot was waving an arm over his head. The security commander looked up and saw that the hammership had slowed but was starting to list to starboard. It had been badly damaged in some space battle. It was a miracle that it was even here at all. The forward helm room appeared to have been holed, and the port hammerhead eye was gone, ripped completely off. Human men and women were leaping into the water now, clutching at boards and debris, waving their arms wildly for rescue.
The fan boat crossed the wake from the ship’s crash, slamming through the waves with several bone-jarring jolts. When the fan boat was close enough, the commander reached forward and poked the pilot hard in the back. The pilot immediately flipped the engine switch and cut the fan’s power. Now, the commander could hear the voices of the hammership’s crew crying out for help. He was close enough to read the ship’s nameplate, too – the Probe.
Other fan boats behind the lead one were cutting their engines now. Gnomes were hurling every sort of buoyant object on their fan boats’ decks into the midst of the swimming humans. Some humans were badly wounded and were being pulled from the water, screaming in agony. As the lead fan boat rounded the port side of the hammership, the crashed ship settled down into the water. The commander noticed one more survivor clamber out of the huge hole in the upper hull where the hammership’s port “eye” had been, a man in soaking rags who could not use his legs. Exhausted, the man fell forward into the water – and disappeared.
“That way!” shouted the commander to his pilot. “Get that man!” The pilot snatched an oar and maneuvered the boat around until it was next to the man’s floating, face-down body. With one movement, the commander reached down and dragged the human on deck, almost losing his seating and falling overboard himself in the process.
The commander carefully rolled the man over to see if he still breathed. He did, coughing immediately on the water he’d inhaled. “Lucky devil!” said the commander, wreathed in smiles and gently shaking the survivor. “Another few seconds, and you’d … you’d …”
Still coughing, the man squinted up into the commander’s blue, wide-eyed, hippopotamus face, and the latter gasped.
“By the Great Captain’s blunderbuss!” bellowed First Colonel-Commander Herphan Gomja, Commander in Chief of Base Security, Port Walkaway, Ironpiece. “You’re Teldin Moore!”
Chapter Seven
“The helmsman on the Unicorn’s Wing has ceased to speak with us, my admiral,” said the battlewizard. Her hands dropped from the crystal globe in her lap. Her face was streaked with tears, but her voice was calm and even. “I fear the smoke and flames have overcome her.”
Admiral Cirathorn said nothing. He stared out the broad, high windows of the Empress Dorianne’s bridge at the yellow and red fires in the distance. He could see the Unicorn’s Wing ablaze now, about two miles distant and receding swiftly. It was moot whether anyone else had survived the close assault the humanoids had staged against the man-o-war. The gnomes had arrived just as the Wing was being boarded; its captain apparently had mistaken the gnomes for more humanoids and had ordered his gunners to fire on them as well. It proved to be a costly error. One of the gnomish vessels caught fire, but three others unleashed their weapons at the man-o-war and humanoid ships, damaging everything in view – including, if reports were to be believed, one of their own ships.
That had been only a small slice of the action. The battle, all told, had taken about four hours. The most severe fighting had come in the first hour, when the elves sighted and recognized the fleet before them as humanoid in nature, then crept in for the first strike. This was followed by cat-and-mouse games played out by vengeful, blood-hungry elven and humanoid captains. Cirathorn had secretly hoped that Teldin would require rescue, placing him and his cloak with the Imperial Fleet, but that had proved unnecessary. If there were any winners, it would be the gnomes, who had driven all others away from their world.
A distant star of yellow and white bloomed among the almost-invisible wrecks. A few moments later, the star grew in ragged brightness, then grew larger again. One of the humanoid ships had blown up. It must have been the ogre mammoth, the one to which the marines from the Dorimae had teleported. A good move, that, to decapitate the ship’s command and helm with one strike, just before decloaking and setting the mammoth ablaze. Orcs and ogres had crewed the mammoth’s bridge, fighting surprisingly well for otherwise slow-witted scum.
“What word do we have of the Probe?” Cirathorn asked, still peering out the windows.
The battlewizard answered promptly. “It has either landed or crashed on Ironpiece by now, my admiral. It appeared to have been damaged by the initial assault before it pulled away. It was traveling at five times the basic speed a spelljammer can attain when it left.”
Cirathorn hid his surprise. “Did you observe any activity aboard the Probe that would account for its speed?"
"No, my admiral. Its flight was completely unexpected.” The admiral stared out the windows in silence. The exploding vessel had come apart in a thousand pieces. The air envelope around the remainder of the hull was visible as an expandi
ng gray smudge against the endless stars.
Teldin had used the cloak to help the Probe escape from the humanoids. Cirathorn knew this for a fact. Only the cloak might have the power to serve as its own helm, and so powerful a helm at that. Perhaps it had even overridden an active helm. It would hardly surprise the admiral now to hear it. The Cloak of the First Pilot was said to have been an artifact, after all.
What was there to do now? The humanoid fleet was massing again in a position trailing Ironpiece by about five to six million miles. Did the humanoids have reinforcements following them? Where had they come from originally? Was this the start of the long-rumored and long-feared second Unhuman War? Were the humanoids allied with the undead, given that a pyramid ship – long known to be an abode for mummies, liches, and other perversions-traveled in their fleet with them?
There were other awful possibilities. Did the humanoids have a base in this sphere? The battlewizards said the humanoids were largely made up of powerful-looking orcs who appeared to have been recently armed and supplied. Could theorcs have invaded and conquered a nearby elven world? They reportedly had an elven wizard on the ogre mammoth’s death helm, who had to be slain in his madness by the Dorianne’s marines. The death helm warped the mind and spirit of its doomed helmsman, causing him to fight all attempts at rescue while it drained its victim’s life force. The helm was a perversion that only humanoids would cherish; its possession by any being in civilized space was normally punishable by death.
There were many small colony worlds here, not a few of them elven, and most were widely scattered or socially isolated. Some elven worlds had been settled by renegades, officers cashiered from the Imperial Fleet for disobeying orders or causing trouble, and these worlds did not welcome any contact with the Imperial Fleet as yet. Had pride led a small elven world like Numeliador, Spiral, or Minial’s Arch to turn down a chance to call for help to the fleet’s forces at the Rock of Bral?